Baking slack dough in a Dutch Oven gives great results, as seen in many mouth watering photographs on this site, if you have the nerve, and your oven is at countertop height.
I have neither. I am so accident prone, I keep burn medicine in the fridge, Band Aid in every room in the house, so picking up a 500^F Dutch Oven from a floor level oven, placing it on the counter on a heat proof surface, loading a proofed, wet dough into that DO, and putting it back into the hot oven (With a blast of 500F air on my face) is not something that I am comfortable with.
After ALL of my Whole Grain, and high hydration white loaves baked on a stone, covered with a SS bowl turned into award winning Flying Saucers, I thought what does a DO provide?
* Side support, so the dough can only rise upwards
* Quickly heat the dough, since the DO is pre heated. (Yes, there are a few experiments here that indicate cold Dutch ovens work as well, but they are few)
* Confine the steam from the dough in a smaller volume than the whole oven cavity.
So, what else fits the bill? How can I get same results withot the burn risk?
A thin walled, Stainless steel or Aluminum saucepan, with a meatal lid.
* It provides side support, just like a DO
* Since it is thin walled, it heats up quickly in the pre heated oven.
* Confines steam from dough in a small volume, just like a DO.
My standard loaf is baked with 300g of flour 70% ish hydration, about 50 to 100g of 100% hydration levain, depending on room temperature.
This is a small loaf, baked weight about a pound (I am bi lingual in weights) so I bought a 6" diameter, 4" tall Revere brand (USA) thin walled pan and a metal lid for the princely sum of $4.98 plus tax from Goodwill. Drilled out the rivet and removed the handle. Of couse, the pan should be scaled up for a larger loaf.
The dough was mixed with a spatula, two Stretch and folds in the bowl, one envelope fold on the counter, about 40% Bulk ferment, gently shaped and placed in room temperature parchment lined pan, 45 minute bench proof, placed pan in fridge overnight, baked in the morning. The pan with dough was taken out of the fridge while the oven was pre heating.
My best 50% WW loaf so far. Will try a 100% soon.
Have you considered a covered Pullman Pan? If you are not adverse to a structured loaf instead of free-form it may be a good fit for you?
If you like the idea I’ll send you another link.
HERE is some data pertaining to heavy vessels (cast iron) and light weight ones. Your covered pot should work well.
HTH,
Danny
Dan, Thanks for the link.
Your experiment shows the same or very similar results to my Stainless steel pan.
Baking in a cold thin walled pan with a pre heated oven produces very similar results to grappling with a heavy, pre heated, Cast iron Dutch oven.
The lid of my pan can even be removed with a pair of tongs, since it has a lightweight lid.
Your choice of Granite ware is even better, since it comes in oval shape as well.
Very nice loaf and that crumb looks perfect for my taste!
Congrats on your new baking setup. The price was right and looks like it’s working well. 👍
I tested my rye bread in a cold and hot dutch oven, didn’t see a difference.
I do the final proof in the dutch oven (sitting on parchment paper) put it in the cold oven, turn on the heat. When the oven is at temperature I start the bake clock. After half an hour I remove the lid and wait for it to finish.
actually turns a sauce pan into a dutch oven. I have several sauce pans I've used for baking bread and I hang onto the handles for easy conversion back to stove top cooking. I also have used sauce pans lip to lip. One small DO serves as the lid because I like the curve shape of the bottom converted sauce pan. These are both light weight and cast aluminum. I can also bake in ceramic and SS bowls covered with aluminum foil, the foil tent first shaped over the empty inverted bowl to allow plenty of room for the expanding loaf.
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/15736/mini039s-favorite-rye-ratio
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_oven
There are a lot of treasures at Good Will. When I first read this post, The title ended with the word, safe. I first thought you might have turned an old safe into a baking oven! Lol. That would be one heavy oven!
Beautiful loaf!
P.S. I always carry bandaids in my wallet. And my oven mitts are Kevlar.
Thanks for the comments.
Mini, iI must try a near 100% Rye with all the spices you used. Already have the spices and King Arthur RYE, which is a medium colour.
I will use your proportions and scale down to my 300g flour loaf.
I think some re hydrated onion flakes will be a good addition as well.